कर्मेन्द्रियाणि संयम्य य आस्ते मनसा स्मरन् ।
इन्द्रियार्थान्विमूढात्मा मिथ्याचारः स उच्यते ॥
इन्द्रियार्थान्विमूढात्मा मिथ्याचारः स उच्यते ॥
Meaning: this verse is very important as it states outward control does not help. If a person does pooja and inwardly thinking of something bad then he is doing bad karma than good deed. So it emphasizes the importance of cleaning inner self.
Any bhagavadgita can be interpreted in terms of three planes I.e., physical plane, psychological plane and spiritual plane.
In the physical plane, this verse says a person is called hypocrite when he is doing good work but his mind is full of bad thoughts.
Psychological plane, thinking about good does not help much unless the ground from which the thoughts arise gets cleaned completely.
Spiritual Plane: A person may be doing prayers but if his mind is thinking about the movie he watched, it is of no use and he is hypocrite.
Message for Students:
Krishna says if a students pretends that he is reading for impressing his parents but his mind is wandering somewhere in other stuff, he is bluffing himself and will not yield good result by doing this karma.
Message for House workers:
Suppose a mother prepares food for her kid unwillingly. Her expectation would be getting appreciation from her kid and her kid to be healthy. But her mind is somewhere and cook, the food will be causing harm to the kid rather than doing good.
Message for job workers:
Similarly any task is done without mind's presence it will not help the performer of the task and does not benefit the consumer/customer.
So this verse is universal and has its beauty in warning everyone to emphasize importance of inner cleansing rather than outer.
